MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

11/11 Alomar’s view on managing

Sandy Alomar Jr. says he started thinking about managing back in 2001. Although he has no managerial experience, he has learned a lot from his different managers, and on Friday, he interviewed with the Cubs.

“Even though I only have four years of coaching, I feel like I have done many things in a short period of time,” Alomar said.

He calls Chicago home, and his 7-year-old daughter goes to school near Wrigley Field. It would be an easy commute.

Although he played for the White Sox, Alomar did not interview for the managerial opening there.

“I don’t take that personally,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for the White Sox organization. What [GM Kenny Williams] did over there with Robin [Ventura] opens doors for many other people to take opportunities to sign managers without experience. They don’t owe me a call, they don’t owe me anything. I never said I was entitled to a phone call. They did what they did and you wish them the best of luck. Kenny always treated me with respect when I was there.”

What does he bring as a manager?

“I think I bring a lot of things to the table that maybe some of the other guys don’t bring in regards to being a player, going through injuries in their past, spending a lot of time in the Minor Leagues as a player,” he said. “I’ve played in the postseason, gone to a World Series, played for 10 different managers and they all participated in the postseason. Seven of them went to the World Series and three of them won the World Series. I’ve played for winning people all my career and that gave me the opportunity to learn their values and how to take abilities from other people and incorporate that to myself.”

The key to handling players is communication, and that would definitely apply to handling Carlos Zambrano.

“One of the things Zambrano has is he carries a lot of emotion on his sleeve,” Alomar said. “A lot of people from Latin American countries, those emotions come from way back when you’re a kid. The style of baseball that we play when we’re a kid in Puerto Rico, the Dominican, Venezuela and maybe Mexico, is when you’re a kid there, you have to win, you have to perform.

“I think as you grow, you think you have to bring that with you,” he said. “When you become professional, sometimes you treat the game like you’re still a kid. You want to have fun but there’s other things that have to be addressed.I think he’s an emotional guy. I would have to have conversations with him, try to get in his mind and see what’s going on and hopefully figure it out — otherwise bring a stun gun myself.”

Why do catchers make good managers? Alomar said it’s because of the way they view the game.

“You have to make moves on the fly, you call games on the fly,” he said. “You don’t have time to make decisions. You have to react and make decisions according to the plan you put in before the game. You visualize the whole field. Sometimes you even manage guys on the field. Having the ability to be in that position to see many players — you’re the only guy facing the other players and you’re the only guy who can see what the defensive positioning is. Having that in play, I think it helps a catcher make a lot of decisions and it happens fast. I think that’s why a lot of catchers hae the ability to manage.”

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.